Potential investors subscribe to shares to be sold by SK Bioscience Co. in an initial public offering., at a Seoul brokerage office on March 10, 2021. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, March 10 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korean vaccine maker SK Bioscience Co. drew a record 64 trillion won (US$56 billion) in investor deposits during a two-day subscription period for its share sale, company officials said Wednesday.
According to the officials, the deposits for SK Bioscience’s initial public offering (IPO) surpassed the two previous records set last year — 58.6 trillion won for gaming company Kakao Games and 58.4 trillion won for K-pop agency Big Hit Entertainment.
Subscription sign-ups also hit a record 2.4 million cases, over five times more than Kakao Games’ 418,000.
SK Bioscience, a unit of South Korea’s No. 2 family-controlled conglomerate SK Group, has allocated up to 2.29 million new common shares to general investors in the March 18 IPO seen as a prime share sale during the first half.
SK Bioscience has set the IPO price at 65,000 won per share, which puts its corporate value at about 5 trillion won.
SK Bioscience engages in developing COVID-19 vaccines and produces vaccines on behalf of other drug companies.
The company has started a clinical trial of its own vaccine candidate, and it has signed deals with AstraZeneca, Novavax and other global pharmaceutical firms to produce their vaccine candidates.
(Yonhap)
